Nebraska History posts materials online for your personal use. Please remember that the contents of Nebraska History are copyrighted by the Nebraska State Historical Society (except for materials credited to other institutions). The NSHS retains its copyrights even to materials it posts on the web. For permission to re-use materials or for photo ordering information, please see: http://www.nebraskahistory.org/magazine/permission.htm Nebraska State Historical Society members receive four issues of Nebraska History and four issues of Nebraska History News annually. For membership information, see: http://nebraskahistory.org/admin/members/index.htm Article Title: Main Street Empire: J C Penney in Nebraska Full Citation: David Delbert Kruger, "Main Street Empire: J C Penney in Nebraska," Nebraska History 92 (2011) 54-69. URL of article: http://www.nebraskahistory.org/publish/publicat/history/full-text/NH2011JCPenney.pdf Date: 12/5/2012 Article Summary: By the late 1920s, J C Penney had stores in more than fifty Nebraska communities—more than any retailer before or since. Later the company evolved into a suburban shopping mall anchor, following a national trend toward larger stores serving larger regions. Cataloging Information: Names: James Cash Penney, Earl Corder Sams, Roswell Penney, J C Penney Jr, Guy Johnson, J B Byars, F Scott Puliver, Elizabeth Sunberg, Peter Lakers, R R Ferguson, H M Stearns, P L Frandsen, McKay [Imperial, Nebraska manager], Hadley [McCook, Nebraska manager], Lloyd Faidley, D B Woodyard, Earl Sams, William "Mil" Batten, Donald Seibert, William Howell, Place Names: Grand Island, Nebraska; Hamilton, Missouri; Fort Morgan, Colorado; Salt Lake city, Utah; Hastings, Nebraska; Beatrice, Nebraska; Falls City, Nebraska; McCook, Nebraska; Ord, Nebraska; North Platte, Nebraska; David City, Nebraska; Hamilton, Missouri; Lincoln, Nebraska; Tecumseh, Nebraska; Columbus, Nebraska; Kearney, Nebraska; Fairbury, Nebraska; York, Nebraska; Omaha, Nebraska; Scottsbluff, Nebraska; Fremont, Nebraska; Norfolk, Nebraska; Gordon, Nebraska *Please note: The large number of J C Penney locations prohibits listing all of them in this cover page. Only those with larger mention have been listed above. Keywords: J C Penney; Brandeis; Miller & Paine; Herpolsheimer's; Louis Bergman; Rudge & Guenzel; Golden Rule mercantile; Pay Day overalls; Towncraft suit; Marathon fedora; Penney Farms; Foremost Dairies Products; Montgomery Ward; Sears & Roebuck; Pay Day [J C Penney newspaper]; Burr Building [Lincoln, Nebraska]; Lincoln Star; Gold's [Lincoln, Nebraska]; The JCPenney Stores Positioning Statement; Oglala Sioux Photographs / Images: Grand opening of a new J C Penney store in downtown Lincoln, 1950; James Cash Penney, 1929; James Cash Penney with 1927-1928 Peer Cup champion bull; Lincoln J C Penney store in 1929; Wahoo, Nebraska J C Penney store, 1941; J C Penney Scottsbluff store 1948 fire; Lincoln J C Penney new store 1950; interior of the York J C Penney store in 1957; Holdrege J C Penney store in 1958; J C Penney, about 1958, with two young children in the shoe department; J C Penney logos I il .. A y m ^ Main Street Empire: J. C. PENNEY IN NEBRASKA By David Delbert Kruger The April 1914 opening of downtown Grand Island's J. C. Penney store was as significant for the company's thirty-eight-year-old founder as it was for the crowd waiting along the Third Street side walk. For James Cash Penney, the Grand Island opening marked not only his first store in Nebraska, but also the closest he had come to operating near his hometown of Hamilton, Missouri. Nebraska's first J. C. Penney store was also, arguably, the first of the franchises stores in the entire Midwest, as the next closest location was over three hundred miles away in Fort Morgan, Colo rado.1 For nearly a decade, Penney had been creating a chain of sixty stores, but until 1914 his commercial reach extended no farther east than Colorado. The name "J. C. Penney" was almost unrecognizable to Nebraskans at the time, particularly in the shadows of established retailers like Brandeis, Miller & Paine, Her­ polsheimer's, Louis Bergman, and Ruclge &Guenzel.2 The Grand Island location had been planned from the company's first headquarters in Salt Lake City, Utah, but by the time it opened, Penney had already persuaded his board of directors to relocate the headquarters to New York City for better access to manufacturers, distribution lines, and financial institutions. If James Cash Penney and his company were moving east, it seemed logical that many additional J. C. Penney stores in Nebraska would soon follow. Within fifteen years, James Cash Penney was able to saturate more Nebraska towns—large and small—than any other retailer before or since, with most of his stores serving their respective main streets for more than fifty years. Grand opening of a new J. C. Penney store in downtown Lincoln, November 16, 1950. At its peak, the franchise had stores in more than fifty Nebraska communities. NSHSRG2183-1950-1116-2 James Cash Penney, 1929. ers in Nebraska. The newspaper ads for his first DeGolyer Library, Southern Nebraska store featured headlines such as "Grand Methodist University, Dallas, Texas, A2004.007 Island's Cheapest Store" and "We Cater to Railroad Men."" While J. C. Penney stores did sell complete lines of fashionable apparel for the entire family. Penney never envisioned his department stores em ulating the flair of J. L. Brandeis or Miller & Paine. J. C. Penney stores were simply a value-based mercantile for common Nebraskans who needed Pay Day overalls and quality linens as much as they needed a Towncraft suit or a Marathon fedora. Within a year of the Grand Island opening, the company opened additional J. C. Penney stores in Hastings and Beatrice. Expanding throughout Nebraska was very much in line with Penney's aspirations. "If I had insisted on keeping personal control of the Penney Company," Penney later re flected, "we would still be merely a small chain of stores scattered through the Middle West."7 Clearly, Penney would have preferred gradually opening new stores using existing store profits and associate partnerships. Doing so had enabled him to expand his chain without borrowing money, Although Penney never resided but the process took too much time for rapid in Nebraska, he understood its largely agrarian cul nationwide expansion, something that his partners ture and had spent considerable time living in its and associates increasingly wanted. Six years after border states of Missouri. Colorado, and Wyoming. moving to New York City, the J. C. Penney Company Growing up in northwest Missouri, Penney had tak was able to expand from 48 stores in seven states en up farming as a teenager before health concerns to 197 stores in 25 states. Over the same period, an forced him to migrate to Colorado and later Wyo nual sales had mushroomed from $2.6 million to ming to pursue a career in retailing.' However, even $28.7 million.8 as he changed professions, Penney continued to be The chain grew rapidly throughout the nation most comfortable in small towns and rural areas and continued to expand its presence in Nebraska. that were largely dependent upon agriculture. As In 1916, new stores were opened in Falls City, Mc- he later reflected: Cook, and Ord. Within two years, North Platte and For me, innately, cities were places to keep David City also welcomed J. C. Penney stores to away from. Small towns were where I was at their downtown business districts. Amazingly, the home. I knew how to get close to the lives of company was able to find additional new locations small town people, learning their needs and with little more than manager recommendations, preferences and serving them accordingly.1 personal visits, census figures, and crude market Despite Penney's move to New YorkCity in 1914, ing data. From its New York headquarters, eight he still identified with farmers and ranchers, and scouts were assigned to perpetually visit, inves believed that he shared their values and under tigate, and report on potential sites across the stood their needs. As a fundamentalist Christian, United States.9 From the J. C. Penney perspective, Penney also believed that a J. C. Penney store in bigger cities were not necessarily better locations. their rural communities could be the embodiment Although Grand Island had a population just over of what a retail institution should be: an honest 10,000, none of the other Nebraska store locations neighbor that operated by the golden rule "Do unto at that time had populations larger than 5,000."'In others, as you would have them do unto you." Pen its first twenty years, the company didn't even have ney had opened his firststores as cash-only Golden a store prototype large enough to serve a city the Rule mercantiles, primarily for sheep ranchers, size of Lincoln, much less Omaha, so locations in miners, and their families, allowing them to maxi those cities were not even considered. mize quality with minimum prices."' Similarly, he It was somewhat ironic that a former Missouri also embraced thrifty farmers and railroad work farmboy, with stores primarily in rural towns, sud denly found himself running a company from an 56 • NEBRASKA history office in Midtown Manhattan. For Penney, this was Throughout the 1920s, J. C. Penney's expansion not the happy ending to a real-life Horatio Alger across Nebraska was virtually impossible to ignore. story. Penney still longed for country living, but In 1920 alone, Penney established new stores in with J. C. Penney stores becoming a national chain, Columbus, Fremont, Kearney, and Norfolk. Within he felt obliged to remain in New York. Geography, five years, after stores were opened in Broken however, did not stop him from reconnecting with Bow, Nebraska City, and Auburn, the J.